Nano 2017 Update

Posted December 4th 2017 12:00 am

My official word count for 2017: 21,727 out of 50,000 It's that time of year again. No, not Christmas (don't get me started on Christmas songs, especially in Japan). Although it is December, it means that NaNoWriMo is over.

Nano-what now?

For anyone that doesn't know, NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month". AKA: Write 50,000 words in November. If you write that amount, you can win some cool prizes at the end of the month.

Hopefully, most of my followers will know that NaNo has been a great source of motivation for me over the past four years. In fact, my first book, "Night Blade: Dawn of Discovery" was a NaNo book (and there's actually a funny story behind that).

Whatever. What's the result?

Over the past four years, I have participated in NaNo every year, and won most of the time ("Winning" means to accomplish 50,000 words within a month - not "have a fully published novel in a month", as I found out. Additionally, as long as you write 50,000 words, you "win" and you can work on publishing your novel using the prizes - there's no placement of winners). This year is one that I did not win.

My latest novel is actually the 3rd draft of "Omega Noir", which I've retitled as "Light My Fire". There were many reasons for the name change, and while I did have Omega Noir as my work in progress for the past two years (2015 was book 1, 2016 was book 2), it became obvious during editing that the story just wasn't going the way I wanted it to go. Aside from being a bit long-winded, the villains weren't villain-y enough, and the story just didn't develop in a way that made it interesting. Now, I'm writing the 3rd draft (after 300+ pages of the other drafts), which should be much better in the story development, and not as boring. Additionally, I'm hoping that with the way that the villains have been planned, it will come as a surprise to see what they do.

Final Word Count...

As the clock struck midnight (East Coast) on November 30th, 2017, my word count totaled to.....21,727. Yes, that's only 43.5% of the total goal, but I have a lot of reasons why this year didn't really work out. (As of December 1st, my word count is 24,242 for the new material; grand total is 38,562.)

(Big breath....)

My list of ExcusesReasons

JLPT Test - On December 3rd (yesterday), I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) N5 level (N5 is the easiest, N1 is the hardest) to assess my Japanese language skills. Although the JPLT is offered twice a year, and I wasn't confident enough to take it in the spring, Keat and I decided to try for the winter. Our study habits fell a bit, but we did study multiple sources for the JLPT. However, our study efforts weren't enough, as we probably still didn't pass (Our results should come around February).

Work - As many of you may or may not know, work has been a bit stressful around here. With 40+ hours working at the local schools (not counting commuting) along with 5-10 hours working for AB Tech, time has not been as available as it has been with previous novels. Additionally, as I can only take in my laptop to 1 out of 4 schools, I am writing by hand most of the time, then having to transcribe later, which does not make for a good habit.

Online Education - Different from the online courses I am teaching, I am also taking online courses - specifically for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is requiring a bit of work.

New Venture - Keat and I were really excited to start planning a new project called Base Camp Pods, which is like an upscale hostel. We're still hammering out the details (like financials, logos, locations, etc), but just the idea of a new venture is exciting.

Tacos-giving - The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Keat and I hosted our own Thanksgiving, called "Tacosgiving", because we had tacos with friends. It was the first Thanksgiving that we had hosted, and the first one with just friends, and it was great! Although it took quite a bit of work to put together, it was still worth it.

Does this mean that I'll be participating in NaNo next year? Most likely, depending on how far I get with this new-ish novel, and/or start a new one next year.